No Ordinary Love

I bonded with a little lame chick in the Amazon rainforest.  A few weeks ago I travelled over 6,000 kilometres to the Peruvian jungle where there's a myriad of exotic, fabulous creatures.  Some of the animals that inhabit the Amazon rainforest are the mighty, mystical Jaguar, as well as ocelots, capybaras, anteaters, and birds such as harpy eagles, macaws, toucans and hummingbirds.  But I ended up making a special connection with a lowly chicken.  Go figure.
She was still very young and one of her legs was deformed, causing her to walk with a sweet, awkward, little gait.  I loved her right away, because I've always had a soft spot for animals and people who hobble.  Something about their noble efforts to compensate for being off-balance endears them to me.
I went to the jungles of Peru to participate in the sacred ceremonies of Grandmother Ayahuasca and find balance and emotional stability, and heal from old wounds. It's a subject I've written about a few times on this little web of mine. 
Grandmother had been calling me to have tea with her in the jungle since this past summer.  The signals she sent were numerous and unmistakable, but because I simply couldn't afford the trip I didn't pay much attention.  Then one day I got a lucrative commercial gig - a joy in itself - and voila! I was able to sign up for a retreat that not-so-coincidentally happened while I was turning 66 years old. In numerology Six is my life path number and means a great deal to me, magical thinker that I am.  So when all the stars aligned for me to celebrate my 66th birthday having tea with Grandmother, I didn't waste a moment making travel plans.  I arranged to visit the ayahuasca retreat aptly named Grandmother's Home.  It also goes by the Harakbut name of Parign Hak, which means the same thing.

I did not make the decision to go to Peru for an ayahuasca retreat lightly.  It was deeply considered, especially because my experiences with Grandmother's jungle juice have always been very difficult -  nauseating, in fact.   I know that I experience nausea more than most people who drink her tea.  If everyone had the same extreme physical reaction that I do, nobody would be drinking it at all.  After all, who would deliberately subject themselves to several hours of vomit-inducing biliousness?  Unless, of course, you're some kind of a masochist?  (Another issue of mine.)  That's why every time I drink ayahuasca and end up reeling from its effects, I vow that I'm never going to do it again.  But the healing that happens and the subsequent epiphanies always lure me back.
Grandmother called me for unfinished business.  First and foremost, ayahuasca is intended for healing.  It purges the inner demons caused by psychological wounds such as childhood trauma, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder.  Some people enter other realms of consciousness, or make an intimate connection with the plant and animal world of the Amazon rainforest.  I envy them, because I've always wanted that, too.  The fact that I haven't had that experience with Grandma's tea sometimes makes me feel as if I'm spiritually undeveloped or insensitive.  I mean - nausea every time?  Give me a break, Grandma.  Please?  (That's my OCD - obsessive comparison disorder - talking.)
Grandmother wouldn't have beckoned me if I hadn't been able to comply.  I feel fortunate that I was able to do so, because she is the most powerful and revered of the plant spirits in the Amazon rainforest.  Because Grandmother knows best, she went straight into healing mode with me.  And deep healing, whether it's physical or spiritual, is never instant or easy.
After our first ceremony I wondered why oh why do I manifest such severe nausea in order to heal?  The answer came to me while I was clucking like a mother hen over my little lame chick at the jungle retreat where I was staying.
Ping!
Suddenly I understood why I've always had a soft spot for wobbly walkers. 
Nausea is frequently experienced in situations that induce vertigo, which results in lack of stability and loss of balance.  Some of my regular readers might recall that I refer to my milder bouts of depression as the wobblies.  The presence of that lone, lame chick at the retreat wasn't mere happenstance.  She was there to send me a message, and I loved her for it.
The second ceremony was two nights after the first, and on my birthday.  Jessica, our experienced ayahuascera, and co-founder of Parign Hak, always tells the participants that no two ceremonies are the same.  I really wanted to believe that, but the nausea I experience every time makes it feel the same to me.  Dizziness overpowers anything else that happens, including the vivid visions.  It's hard to pay attention to mystical visions while feeling bilious.
So, apart from praying for cleansing, healing, and learning, I asked Grandmother to teach me the ways of the Wise Woman.  Since I'm fully ensconced in my senior years, I figured it wouldn't be asking too much to teach me how to be an exemplary elder.  I felt certain Grandma would reward me with deep, mystical insights in the ways of the Wise Woman.  Surely I deserved it because I'd shown my commitment to healing by repeatedly coming back for more tea.  But I was wrong.  Boy, was I wrong.

As it turned out, my birthday ceremony was different, but not in the way I'd prayed for.  The visions usually appear to me just slightly before the nausea sets in.  This time there weren't any at all - just the usual, unwelcome land-lubber sea-sickness.  After reeling and rolling for a while, I realised I wasn't going to get any magical teachings on how to be an awesome elder.  Instead, I got angry.  Really, really angry.  That part was different, too.  I'd never felt any anger during ceremonies before.  But on my birthday I felt as if Grandmother had betrayed me, because my prayers were so heartfelt and I so desperately wanted relief from the assault on my body.  After railing against Grandma to myself, I finally succumbed to the full physical effects of her tea.
More differences were to come.  In most of the previous ceremonies I'd regressed to a young child, cowering in fear, and hiding from the outside world.  This time, however, I went all the way back to a puking, mewling infant.  I became a newborn baby, barely out of the womb.  I'm so glad the ceremonies are performed in complete darkness, because I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to witness my regression.  It was not a pretty sight, I'm sure. 
I kept chanting to myself "This is my birthday.  This is my birthday," because I couldn't understand why Grandmother didn't ease up on me just a little on my special day.  Eventually the nausea passed, as it always does, and I waited for the blessed euphoria that happens as the effects  fade away.  But Grandmother had other plans for me.  This time I fell into a deep, dark funk.  Yep.  I ended up in the kind of depression I thought was being purged.  Instead of sitting in a state of bliss and grateful to be alive, I lay on my mat weeping and wondering what the point of it all was - typical depressive thinking.  So yeah.  I finally had a ceremony that was different.  It was harder on me than all the others I'd been through,  and without any of the perks I get for enduring it all.  Yippee.

By mid morning I was feeling completely normal again, and deeply puzzled.  I needed to know what Grandmother had taught me the night before.  Then I saw my beloved little lame chick with her funny, lopsided gait.  I suddenly realised Grandmother had, indeed, answered my prayers.  My birthday ceremony was a truncated, no-frills version of my path through life right up until that moment.  My journey through childhood trauma and the subsequent adult depression was my personal path to wisdom.  My life experience has made me who I am.  It validates my own brand of wisdom. 
I was looking for Grandmother to give me a magical formula, but that's not how wisdom is attained.  The getting of wisdom is owning and learning from our experiences and the lives we live - all the hardship and joy, love and drama.  But the most important lessons are the toughest ones, and Grandmother showed me that in her usual in-your-face style.  I will never question her methods again.
Ayahuasca is a Quechua word which means vine of the dead.  It is so called because many patients who drink ayahuasca for healing purposes experience a very difficult metaphysical death.  I've heard several people describe how they thought they were literally going to die while under the influence of Grandmother's tea.  Of course they don't die.  They are spiritually reborn.

I now know that chanting this is my birthday, this is my birthday during ceremony wasn't so much a plea for an easier ride as it was a proclamation that I was, indeed, being born again.  It was my rebirthday.   The old me died giving birth to the new me, and Grandmother A. was the midwife.  I attribute the deep-sea blues I had when I would have normally felt euphoria to a typical case of post-partum depression.  As a writer I love that kind of stuff - metaphors and symbols that perfectly describe what I'm thinking and feeling, and Grandmother's always supplying me with all kinds of them.  Signs and symbols are magical, and mythologise my life story.  But Grandma doesn't offer them to me randomly, I have to earn them by paying attention.  And I do.
My little lame chick is a prime example of metaphors I meet on my path through life.  Not only does she represent my affinity for wobbly walkers, but as feathered animals go, she couldn't represent a more commonplace bird.  And I don't like ordinary.  Never have.  But I fell in love with that sweet chick, and she bonded with me in return.  Jessica pointed out that my little lame bird recognised a kindred spirit in me as well.  I like to think so, too, and there's nothing ordinary about that.
I went to the Amazon for tea with Grandma to rebuild the shaky foundations of my life.  My spiritual death and rebirth shattered the old paradigm and allowed me to start all over, like a phoenix rising out the ashes and rubble of my old self. 
I've never been much for overt displays or verbal expressions of love, which is why I'm almost embarrassed to advocate Love as the answer to the world's problems.  It seems like such a sixties, hippy-dippy cliché, and goes against my usual, spinsterly ways.  Nevertheless, it's by far the biggest and best lesson I learned while having tea with Grandmother.  Teatime with Grandma was hard on me physically, emotionally and psychologically.  But I wasn't alone.  Jessica was there to assist me if I needed it - and I sure did - as was her friend and co-founder of Parign Hak, Victoria. 

Victoria, along with her devoted partner Alberto, helped facilitate the ceremonies, and offered me unfailing love and support for the entire week I was there.  (I couldn't help noticing that Victoria and Alberto bear the same names as Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, true lovers if there ever were.)  I may have felt bilious during ceremony, but I always knew I was safe.  Grandmother and the extended family at Parign Hak proved to me that if a person is raised on a solid foundation of love and respect, she can firmly stand up to any crap that life throws at her (and it will) with the necessary strength and grace.  Love is the bedrock to a life well-lived.
I was hoping to connect and commune with all kinds of beautiful, exotic flora and fauna on my jungle journey, whether it was in or out of ceremony.  It's an amusing irony that my closest encounters were with dogs, turkeys, geese, and chickens; animals that I can see at anytime in my home and native land.  So it was an unexpected joy to be amongst so-called ordinary animals and appreciate how special and beautiful they are.  I've learned that Love and Beauty - attributes of the number 6 - can be found under the most difficult circumstances and in the most ordinary places.  That's why I'm finishing this story about a powerful, extraordinary visit to a mystical forest with a visual cliché.  I want to include one of my favourite pictures of a couple of the lovely, supposedly ordinary critters I met in the Peruvian jungle.  So here goes...
This marks The End.  The Very End.
- G.P.